MASSDEVICE ON CALL — The medical device tax took effect at the start of 2013 over the objections of the industry, and a lack of GOP coordination during the fiscal cliff talks may have been partly to blame.
Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) told reporters that Republicans in the House of Representatives sank efforts to repeal the medical device tax when they refused to supposed House Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) fiscal cliff package.
Boehner’s bill could have opened doors for larger negotiations that might have included consideration of the medical device tax, Klobuchar told the Star Tribune.
And yet all is not lost. Fellow North Star State legislator Sen. Al Franken conceded that repealing the tax will be more difficult now that it has taken effect, but he’s not giving up the fight.
"You’d be naive to say [implementation of the tax] doesn’t make it harder [to repeal]," Franken told the Tribune. "But I want to meet with folks from the industry here in the state and talk about different ways of … providing evidence that this [tax] might be counterproductive."
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